Occasionally, we won’t try to be snarky about something, and just present it to you as the cool, interesting thing that should be read by all. This is “Recommended Reading”.

Dave Strader

Dave Strader, Phoenix Coyotes play-by-play man, has the greatest blog name ever: Tell-Us-Strader. Get it? Yeah, we know. Anyway, check out this tale of how he ended up calling the highest rated regular season hockey game in 13 years in this edition of his blog. A sample:

I set my Blackberry to wake me up the next morning, but I woke up before the alarm sounded. At 7:45 a.m. I turned on my phone and instantly heard the familiar beep of incoming text messages…about eight of them. They were all from Sam Flood and Darren Pang telling me to “wake up”… “call me right away”…“we need you in Chicago ASAP.”

Very cool stuff. Check out the rest as Strader “Tells Us”, uh, Strader.

We have some very good news to report for those readers who are Devils fans: Doc Emrick will return to MSG Plus’ New Jersey Devils broadcast team on Saturday in Los Angeles, after battling laryngitis and then mourning his father’s death.

On a much less somber note, Doc takes on Dallas Stars play-by-play man Ralph Strangis in Round 3 of our Tourney of Announcers. Voting lasts 24 hours, so start now.

NBC recently bought what was formerly called WCSN to create Universal Sports. The idea behind it was to showcase all the Olympic athletes we love so much in the years when no one cares about them. But they’ve expanded programming a little bit, and currently air a weekly KHL broadcast. They’re upping the ante though, for the KHL All-Star Game.

As many of you already know, the KHL game will not be any ordinary tilt. It’ll be played outdoors at Red Square in Moscow. The teams will be captained by Alexei Yashin and Jaromir Jagr. This should make for some interesting hockey. John Ahlers and Brent Severyn, both with the Anaheim Ducks, will call the action off monitors in LA. Check out the entire press release after the jump.

We reported this morning about the networks that would air the AHL All-Star Classic. But it turns out the hands have changed as far as the Canadian national broadcaster. Originally Rogers Sportsnet, it appears now that TSN has signed a three-year deal to air the game nationally in Canada. Some details via TSN.ca:

“This partnership represents a fantastic opportunity for Canadian hockey fans to follow the best and brightest young professional players as they compete in the top development league in the world,” said David Andrews, AHL President and CEO. “Our All-Star Classic each year is a showcase of the future stars of the NHL, and we’re excited to be able to bring the excitement of the event to TSN’s viewers.”

The 2009 AHL All-Star Classic presented by Charter Communications will be produced by the New England Sports Network (NESN) and will air on a series of regional sports networks in the United States in addition to TSN in Canada. The 2009 AHL All-Star Skills Competition will take place on Sunday, January 25 (4 pm et / 1 pm pt), with the 2009 AHL All-Star Game following on Monday, January 26 (7 pm et / 4 pm pt).

I really think that if the national cable home of the NHL in Canada can air the game, than VERSUS should pick it up as well. Seriously, the NHL should mandate VERSUS show it as part of it’s Monday night off. Keep Mondays and Tuesdays dedicated to hockey, at least. But, oh well. The World Juniors wasn’t good enough for them to air either.

We spoke to you yesterday about how many games FOX produced in a season. One of our commenters pointed out that they were all regional telecasts, meaning fans could only actually watch 12 games a season. We know. We just like making dramatic statements.

Anyway, we took some good from FOX yesterday, we take some bad today, with some hilariously cheesy pre-game intro video from Game 1 of the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals between the Devils and Red Wings. Does this announcer still do the football pre-games on FOX?

NBC had a pretty impressive broadcast team for hockey during the 2006 Torino Olympic Games. Mike Emrick, John Davidson, Dave Strader, Ray Ferraro, Pierre McGuire, Joe Micheletti, Bill Clement, Cammi Granato. All of them provided terrific play-by-play and analysis for the sport, and were often quoted in NBC’s daily press releases of the best quotes from all their analysts.

Well, today TSN confirmed what had long been known for their teams for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics: Pierre McGuire and Ray Ferraro will be exclusive property of CTV/TSN, meaning neither of them can work for NBC. Darren Pang, who has worked for NBC as well in the past, has also been signed by CTV/TSN.

It’ll be interesting to see how NBC works from here. Emrick, Clement and Strader are all locks to return for Vancouver, and Eddie Olczyk seems a given, but there are still quite a few spots open. Who do you all think should fill them? After the jump is CTV/TSN/Sportsnet’s complete hocky coverage team for 2010. Also included are their women’s hockey announcers and RDS’ staff.

About 12 months or so ago, Fanhouse’s NHL section was a must read. It was a who’s who of all the most spirited, interesting, rabble-rousing (to use a Jay Mariotti word, sadly) opinion-meisters the hockey blogosphere had to offer. Eric McErlain, Jes Golbez, Greg Wyshynski, James Mirtle, Tom Luongo, Kevin Schultz. That’s a first line of hockey blogging we’d throw up against the 70’s Canadiens teams. If they were, you know… hockey bloggers.

Nowadays, and it pains us to say this, but NHL Fanhouse is simply not half as good as it was a year ago. Not just because Wyshynski, Mirtle and Golbez are gone. But because Fanhouse has gone away from what makes hockey blogging so much fun: the ability to just spout off your opinion to whoever is willing to listen. Like we are at this very moment.